One year and counting...

So I've done it.  That thing that many of us bloggers do. I simply stopped writing.  And I hated every single minute of it, especially the excuses and the empty promises to myself. But I'm here now, ready with both hands excitedly on the keys to talk about giving up that so-called Hollywood dream, to find an even greater one, here in Boston.

So I'll start with my job. I'm now actually getting paid to write. Imagine that. But honestly, getting it was such a freaking long shot. I was competing against kids ten years younger than me with portfolios that make mine look like a two year old's attempt to stay in the lines. But despite everything I had going against me, I did have one thing that those snot-nosed brats didn't have; I had worked on the show NCIS.  It was a superpower I feared had all but faded away, until that is, it reared its beautiful head during one of my interviews. Because as fate would have it, the thirty-something hipster who met with me was absolutely obsessed with the show. So much so, that he decided to give me, a girl with zero copywriting experience a chance to write for one of the biggest agencies in the world.  I soon realized that those five amazing and terrible years that I had put into working on that show, had all been for this one moment in time. An opportunity to have my cake and eat it too.

Our new house.  Finding this place almost didn't happen.  We had been living in my parent's basement, and honestly, I was actually enjoying it. I mean, I had literally missed more than half of my brother's life while living out in California. When I had left, he was this little wide-eyed kid watching me get on the plane and asking how old he'd be when I moved back.  And when I returned, he had somehow turned into this very tall, deep-voiced teenager. It was a chance for me to make up for some lost time; a chance to really get to know the person he'd become in the last eight years.
But as the months rolled by, we all soon realized that sharing one room with our cat and his litter box wasn't exactly ideal. But finding a place
close to everybody we loved wasn't going to be easy either. So I looked and I looked and I looked and after I had nearly given up hope, I saw it.  A three bedroom house that I'd seen posted months ago that had suddenly, out of nowhere, reappeared on Craigslist.  We were skeptical of course, but something just made us get in the car that day to go check it out. I'll never forget the look on my husband's face as we drove through its very quiet neighborhood and saw its stunning floors and fireplace.  His smile was wider than I'd ever seen, so much so that he couldn't even look at me in fear he'd burst out laughing. We had found it, our little piece of home, our little piece of heaven.
 
My past year here has brought a hurricane, a blizzard, an earthquake, and of course, a bombing.  April 15th was one of the scariest, if not one of the worst days of my life. And I just couldn't help but let those "What if's" take over my brain. The "What if" my brother had gone to the finish line as planned.  The "What if" I had taken the day off and brought my entire family to watch the race.  It was a trying day, one of those days that just makes you appreciate everything that's good in this world. But April 15th, although frightening, also  showed me the very reason I'm here.  Why I chose to come back to such an amazing place. A city that can so miraculously come together, no matter what life throws at it.